Geography A2 Exam Question Essay Example

Geography A2 Exam Question Essay Example Geography A2 Exam Question Essay Geography A2 Exam Question Essay Discuss the impacts of storm events in the British Isles and evaluate the responses to them (40 marks) - - - The British Isles has a cool temperate western maritime climate including four seasons and various weather conditions. Storms come and go some so weak they are unnoticed and some bring in heavy winds and torrential rain and thunder. Depressions are areas of low atmospheric pressure which produce cloudy, rainy and windy weather.These low-pressure systems often begin in the Atlantic, moving eastwards towards the UK. They are responsible for the UKs changeable weather. A storm event we will look at in the British Isles happened in 1987. The storm struck the South West amp; South East of England which devastated buildings and left 12 people dead. This global location is prone to depressions. The storm was initially directed towards northern France and Europe but veered up to the U. K. The sea water from the surrounding ocean flooded people’s homes causing people to flee their homes and evacuate.This cost England thousands of pounds including insurance claims. The surrounding tide from the sea was said to have raised by around 2 to 3 meters. : Approximately 40 mm of rain and hail fell in the course of a few hours. The main cause of deaths was mainly from flooding and high wind speeds – up to 108mph. Anything loose was flying around including roof tiles and debris. - - The main primary impacts were homes damaged by strong winds and flooding of properties.The National Grid sustained heavy damage during the event, as crashing cables began to short circuit and overheat the main system. Many windows of houses were also broken. Slates from roofs of buildings came crashing down which resulted in everyone trapped indoors. Another primary impact was the damage and uprooting of thousands of trees, An estimated 15 million trees were lost. The sewers and sewage systems were flooded, creating dark colored flood waters. This also lead to water contamination and diseases being spread more easily. - We can see how great the impact of the 1987 storm was by comparing it to Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23rd, 2005 and crossed southern Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The hurricane strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane over the warm Gulf water, but weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 125 mph on the morning of Monday, August 29th in Louisiana.The hurricane covered over 500km area and went approximately 160 miles inland. As a result of hurricane Katrina, damage to the U. S was approximately $80 billion nearly triple the damage brought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. However, in New Orleans 2,000 people died as opposed to 12 in Britain. The structure of the buildings in the area was good with well built concrete housing, this resulted in fewer deaths. The number of deaths could have been far higher as the depression was not as strong as the USA hurricane. The impacts in the USA was far greater than that of the UK.At least 1,800 people died in the hurricane with consequential floods. The hurricane had an 8. 5m high storm surge which resulted in large amounts of widespread flooding across hundreds of miles. This caused surface waves to be amplified and increased the height further. Almost every death was a result from the flooding with a few from collapsed buildings. - - Looking at the responses to the storms of the British Isles, we can see that no evacuation took place.This may be because Britain was not expecting a huge storm such as this. The British Isles did not have a hurricane warning system which on the other hand New Orleans did have such a system in place. The 1987 storm in the U. K was a very rare event and no one was prepared for it. A storm of this strength and power only comes every 200 years. The British Isles had a very poor response with little emergency services and help. Britain is used to constant cyclonic weather for the majority of the time and do not expect extreme weather conditions such as that of the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico.New Orleans had sufficient measures in place such as emergency shelters and services. - - How good the response is can be linked to how severe the impacts of the storm were. In the Great Storm of 1987 the response was very fast. The emergency services cleared the area as fast as they could clearing roads and highways. Many people volunteered themselves to clean up rubbish and objects off streets. High community spirit meant that the streets and litter was back to normal in no time.The response was fairly good by the British Isles but if it actually was a hurricane then the UK would have been more severely damaged. The response by the USA was planned evacuating the area before hand as they could see it coming, preparing food and medical supplies. However, it is the response after the hurricane that was extremely impressive. FEMA spent lots of money on rebuilding areas and providing tents, shelter, food amp; medicine to the homeless, preventing diseases. - - - - - - - - These responses greatly outweigh the British capability of responses, but although the British response to storms may not be as high severe as responses such as America, British storms are not as bad one like Hurricane Katrina. - In conclusion British responses are good enough for the size of storms the British Isles receives. The storm gave a valuable picture of what could possibly happen in the future. However, they do not indicate the likelihood of such future events. In order to fully assess the windstorm risk in the U. K, it is necessary to look not just at the footprints and associated losses of historical events, but als o at the losses generated by an exhaustive set of events that assign probabilities of occurrence to different windstorm depressions.